Leanne Kitteridge's adventures in Yoga

Tokyo TT Day 2- Harmony April 7, 2010

Todays’ over arching theme was harmony- or Wa in Japanese. John bascially downloaded an immersion in one morning so there are a lot of concepts that I won’t go over and I will try to get to what I thought were some of the key teachings.

First of all Masa-san did the centering and invocation. His invocation was so deep the first OM semed to rumble out of the earth. I could literally feel the weight of history in that first OM. It suddenly felt like I was sitting in a temple hundreds of years ago witnessing a very sacred thing. I talked to a few others after and apparently I was not alone in my feelings. The whole group followed so beautifully and it was this low rumble of creation. My husband would have loved it!

Masa-san did a very good centering under a lot of pressure. I really feel for anyone that has to teach in front of John. I have never had to do it yet and I am constantly thinking “what would I say? Would I remember the teachings?” I remember once John saying to us ” Don’t lose your mind when your teacher asks you something” but really- if you are not nervous and half out of your skin when he does, then you must not be human!

John told Masa to teach ” harmony” but rather than going straight there, Masa contextualized the teaching. He gave us the setting.

WHEN/WHERE You know how John is always telling us we have to know what time it is? This is part of the context. You have to set context first. Then you have to know HOW. How do you create harmony? Most importantly you have to know WHY. Why do you want harmony?

When we teach we think Attitude, Alignment and Action it is in that order, but for the students , starting to introduce the theme from the reversed order works well. Attitude is more universal and so it may be hard for the students to relate to right away- it is not so relative in the material world they have just left on the street outside the studio. The teacher must see what is in front of them, use their knowledge and then remember why.

Ok let’s see if I can do this ( sake helps??) Let’s take harmony again…

WHEN/WHERE For example if I was to teach tomorrow it would be the 3rd day of a 5 day training- the middle- the peak of a cycle is the fullest- the highest beauty. Lakshimi’s day.

HOW We have to really empty out anything that diminishes us – that makes us small inside- to make room for this fullness of this moment. We want our inner body to be filled with the highest beauty that is available today. We want to align our outer body to echo this fullness and beauty. Both inside and outside come together in harmony.

WHY? Because when we experience beauty it leads us to our heart. When we are in our heart Grace decends and then we awaken to our true nature- we see the connection to everything (CHIT) and we celebrate that connection and create even more harmony ( ANANDA).

This may not be the best example, but you can play with this as a template and hopefully come up with something much more brillant. My motto right now is really trying to simplify my teachings but make them deeper. I have hope that this way of looking at teaching may help me keep my theme from having too many threads.

We spent a good amount of time on balance today. What is balance? How do you get balance? Again this teaching goes straight back to relationship. I had this “aha” moment when doing seesaw principle with my legs and realizing that was just another relationship. The thing about balance is that it is a relationship that can take you to the middle- and when you are in the place of the middle Grace decends, and when Grace decends you awaken and when you awaken you see the connection to everything and everyone around you and you celebrate that connection…… John reiterated this many times today so it continued to clarify that Grace is not the experience- Grace is the mechanism that allows for the experience- CHIT ANANDA is the experience.

This is really big because I hear so many teachers say ” then you experience Grace” but you experience Grace and then what??? It dosen’t stop there…when you experience Grace what happens??? Something else for the teachers out there to chew on for a bit.

Ok time to pack- half a day tomorow and then it’s homeward bound…at least I leave on a day of fullness and beauty!

Harmony in Kanji

Harmony in old and new

Harmony in the city

Harmony on the train

More Harmony on the train

Harmony in food and sake

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One Response to “Tokyo TT Day 2- Harmony”

Dear,
This is Vic. I didn’t know you were leaving at noon on Day 3…. I thought I will still see u at the end of that day and give you a big hug before you leave. Sorry, I miss you….
I just got back to Shanghai, to my husband. Glad to be with family. It was such a bless to meet the wonderful kula in Tokyo, and also sooo happy to meet you!! Thank you for sharing so much on your blog, I learn a lot from you. Hope we meet somewhere again soon!! 🙂
Love & peace,
vic